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Friday, March 9, 2012

Communicating and miscommunicating with products

A while back, I was out of town.On my way back from the restaurant where I
had dinner to my hotel, I had to cross a busy street.There was a button on the corner to press to
get the “Walk” sign to light up when it was safe to cross.I pressed the button.It flashed when I pressed it, then went
out.I pressed it again.It did the same thing.After the third press and flash, I just
waited and a minute later the Walk sign came on.

Why did I press the button three times?

To answer this question, we need to think about human
communication for a moment.The
psychologist Herb Clark has a fantastic 1996 book called Using Language.In it, he
starts by describing the best form of communication for people.We communicate best when there are a small
number of people talking face-to-face in real time.Conversations are like a coordinated
dance.Even when you are not speaking,
you are giving feedback to the speaker by looking at her or nodding or
smiling.This kind of feedback helps the
speaker know she is being understood.And if you don’t understand something, you can immediately cut in and
ask for clarification.

Herb Clark goes on to say
that the chances for miscommunication go up as you get further and further away
from this ideal situation.So, talking
on the phone is harder than being there in person, because you can’t see the
person you are talking to.A lecture is
harder than a conversation, because it is hard to stop the speaker in
mid-sentence if you don’t understand something.Reading something (like a blog entry) is harder than a conversation,
because the text was written a long time before you are even reading it.

One reason why emails can cause so much trouble, is because
it is easy for people to misinterpret the tone in an email and take seriously
something that was meant as a joke.In a
normal conversation, it is easy to look at a speaker and get a sense of whether
they meant a comment to be taken seriously, but in an email or text that information
just isn’t available.

What does this have to do with crossing the street?

We also communicate with the products and devices around
us.We expect them to behave like good
communicators.When I pressed the button
to cross the street, the button flashed.That was the button’s way of saying, “I hear you.”You see this when people are pressing
elevator buttons when a light has blown out.If you press the “up” or “down” button on an elevator and it does not
light, then you end up pressing it again a few times, because you are not sure
that the elevator heard you.

When I was trying to cross the busy street, the light only
flashed, it did not stay on.So, it felt
as though the button was telling me, “I heard you, but I’m ignoring your
request.”And so, I pressed the button
again, as if I was insisting that my plea for a “Walk” light should be heard.

When you get frustrated with using a product, chances are it
is not communicating with you properly.You expect a product to answer you when you ask something.If you press a button on a device or a
website, you are asking for information.You want an immediate response that you were heard and that your request
is being taken care of.You generally
like to get some kind of communication about how long the request is going to
take.The progress bars on websites are
good at that.

In the end, the designers of websites, products, and devices
need to pay attention to the way that people communicate to make sure that they
communicate effectively.These designers
need to think about that ideal form of communication that involves a small
number of people communicating together at the same time and to use that to put
together an effective interface that tells users what they need to know.